When I decided to join the Film and Television Institute of India I must have been 17. I went to meet Suhasini Mani Ratnam at her home. She is one of the first women cinematographers in India — a lesser known fact because she had gone on to become a prolific actor and director. We sat down to talk and when I told her I wanted to be a cinematographer, she asked me a question: “Do you cry at the movies?”
I said yes. Our family was famous for recording emotional scenes from our favourite Tamil movies on VCR and playing it back for a good cry. I thought we were weird, but here was someone who was telling me it’s ok to cry at the movies. In fact, if I didn’t, I could not dream of being part of the movie-making process.
I don’t know how many of you cry at the movies, but I think it’s a pre-requisite for all film critics to pass this litmus test before they are let out into the world. They should be seated in a theatre and, like in an interrogation room, the officers should watch through the tinted glass and see if a tear drop escapes the aspiring critic when they watch an emotional scene. They can use the last scene of Braveheart or scenes from Salangai Oli (our family favourite, will probably still work for us).
Grandmom, the great director
If all else fails, there is the mother sentiment very popular in Indian cinema. Works like a charm every time. Even for the stone-cold cynic. If you are a lover of cinema, then be ready to be moved.
It’s not an easy job being a critic. They have to watch reels of crap before anything good comes their way and have to review everything anyway. Remember the food critic from Ratatouille , aptly called Ego, being moved to tears at the first bite?
I’m sure every critic goes into a movie secretly hoping for that moment. We are all looking for it, a little bit of god in a frame, a little bit of nirvana in a scene, a little bit of ecstasy in a song.
The ability of cinema to unlock our secret wounds, mirror our loneliness and insecurities. To let us feel passion, anger. To get us to laugh at others and ourselves, to let go. It’s an artistic medium that will outlive paintings and poetry in my opinion. It’s the canvas to repaint history, predict the future, draw you into a fantasy, change mindsets and break barriers. We are all addicted to our screens already, constantly looking for stories in real life or reel, to entertain us on demand. Our attention spans may be shrinking, but not our appetites.
Grandmothers wove stories before television and movies. Around the warmth of the kitchen, stories were told to help the ball of rice along. My grandmother told me stories at bedtime, she made each one up I realised much later. There was Tom Thumb and Thumbelina , but they went on adventures that were set in my world in Madras. Grandmothers were the great directors in many houses, building sets, giving actors lines, bringing kings to life and slaying demons.
Optical illusion
That day, Suhasini Mani Ratnam also told me about persistence of vision. She told me to stare at the light bulb in the room, then close my eyes, for the remnant of the image of the light to stick to the space inside my eyelid. Persistence of vision refers to the optical illusion that occurs when the visual perception of an object does not cease for some time after the rays of light proceeding from it have ceased to enter the eye. The illusion has also been described as “retinal persistence”, “persistence of impressions” or simply “persistence”.
This forms the basis of motion picture recording and projection. Twenty-four frames per second. When you look at a frame from a film reel, hold it up against the light, you’ll see what that means. It’s a fragment of the movie, a word from the story.
I miss the smell of film labs these days; the onset of digital took away the smell, but that’s just me being a romantic. We are still telling stories on the digital medium and that’s what matters.
Wikipedia now seems to say scientists have disproved this theory of persistence of vision and motion pictures, which I plan to ignore completely because it takes away the magical awe with which I listened to her that day and rode home with my head full of dreams. What a buzz kill. I’m sticking with my version. Just like I refuse to accept that Pluto is not a planet any more.
I still watch Braveheart when I want to feel a little alive, a little less jaded. My therapy. Ally McBeal had a theme song to feel better on bad days and I have Braveheart . Sounds crazy but pick something that works for you to stay alive in this world.
The writer is a cinematographer, the non-bearded variety, and is called ‘Cameraman Madam’ on the sets.
